The American Plague The American Plague was written by Molly C. Crosby, who is as much as a researcher as she is an author. In 1648, a slave ship returning from Africa carried a few mosquitoes infected with a deadly virus know as yellow fever. The ship landed in the New World and thrived in the hot wet climate and on the white settlers. The New World has never come in contact with yellow fever and as a result no immunities have been built up. The virus obtained its name from the way it turns the victim’s skin and eyes a golden yellow. Victims also suffer from very high fevers, external and internal bleeding, and blackish vomit. In America yellow fever killed thousands of peoples, halted trade, and disrupted the government. Although many cities were affected by yellow fever, none were hindered more than the Tennessee city, Memphis. Before yellow fever made its way into Memphis, it was the largest city in Tennessee. When the virus hit thousands of citizens fled in a mass exodus and the 19,000 that stayed 16,000 and over a quarter of those died. The city revoked its own charter and was almost completely destroyed until a sewage system was established. Once The U.S. Government realized how devastating yellow fever was, they appointed a team of doctors and scientists to research and conquer the virus. The team went to Cuba where yellow fever was very common. Walter Reed was among this group and was the driving force to eradicating yellow fever. He and all but one of the team died of yellow fever but they yielded high results. Eventually a vaccine was created but it would cost too much to vaccinate everyone and at the time that wouldn’t have been possible to vaccine a huge number of people. Instead, great efforts were put into removing mosquitoes and their breeding grounds which would prove to be super effective. Throughout the book I learned many things and thought deeply about certain quotes. The American Plague was a very interesting book with abundant...

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The Fever and The AmericanPlague
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres because I can learn while being entertained. The Fever and The AmericanPlague helped prove that to me even more. These books were about yellow fever which was an epidemic that spread panic through our entire country. When it first broke out in Philadelphia unsanitary city conditions and dirty water were thought by some to be the cause. This disease turned out to be carried through mosquitoes.
I enjoyed both these books in their own separate ways and they weren’t as boring a read as I thought they were going to be. The major difference I noticed about The Fever is that it was a made up story. The story follows a girl named Matilda Cook and her family. It is important to note, however, that this story does contain some actual facts in it. One of the great things about this book is that in the back Anderson made a list of what was factual in the book and told more about each thing so the reader can separate the truth from the story. The story was very engaging and true to life. I enjoyed Matilda’s triumphs and growth through the book.
The AmericanPlague was a different kind of read than that of The Fever. I didn’t get the same emotional current running through it and I never was moved like when the grandfather died in The Fever. The easiest difference to spot is that The...

...﻿Jesse Evans
LS-ENG 0810
17 October 2013
SummaryResponseSummaryResponse of Maya Angelou’s “The Graduation”
In the essay “The Graduation” (McGraw-Hill 2003), Maya Angelou tells the story of life in 1940s Stamps, Arkansas. She explains how it feels to be discriminated and thought of as less than equal. Angelou shows that with a strong will to overcome, it is more than possible to set aside disgusting racism and impersonal discrimination. Angelou delivers a very detailed, inspirational, and informative story of self-acceptance.
Summary
“The Graduation” is an inspirational tale of Maya Angelou’s eighth grade graduation. She uses very powerful descriptive words to explain her surroundings, for example,
Unlike the white high school, Lafayette County Training School distinguished itself by having neither lawn, nor hedges, nor tennis court, nor climbing ivy. Its two buildings (main classroom, the grade school and home economics) were set on a dirt hill with no fence to limit either its boundaries or those of bordering farms. There was a large expanse to the left of the school which was used alternately as a baseball court. (Angelou 1)
Angelou describes the extreme differences from the white school and hers. At this point in the story, Angelou is growing more and more excited about her graduation, along with her family and friends. The town was extremely supportive of the eighth grade classes’...

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Teen pregnancy is one of the most difficult experiences a young person might ever face, especially when it comes in the way of school and other such plans. It can cause an emotional crisis, can result in feelings of shame and fear, and it may appear that one would crumble under the pressure of being a young mother who is not yet fully equipped to raise a child. Or, at least these are the feelings that were once associated with teen pregnancy. According the article Suddenly Teen Pregnancy Is Cool?, these days, young women are glamorized for becoming mothers at a young age. It even goes as far as there being show completely devoted to teenage mothers! The author of this article, Cathy Gulli, who is an associate editor to Maclean’s magazine, has noticed this change in attitude towards teen pregnancy and the rise in underage mothers that seem to accompany it, and wrote about it this article. Her article was the cover story for an issue of Maclean’s that was printed in January of 2008, and discusses the rise of teen pregnancy in recent years, and seeks to explain how this rise came about.
In the article, Gulli writes about the rise is teen pregnancy, but also, what factors seem to be contributing to it. One idea that was clearly asserted in her article, was the idea that the way the media portrays teen pregnancy seems to be a contributing factor to the rise in teenage mothers. Many women who are frequently in the public eye are often congratulated and given copious amounts...

...caffeine pills in order to try to lose weight. Jay Hoffman blames the education system on not educating students of the dangers of these drugs and the influence of elite athletes who use steroids. Hoffman stated "I believe there is an inherent responsibility of being a role model, whether they want it or not, it comes with the territory” (Stenson). Dr. Linn Goldberg, is involved with the national programs to counter steroids in youth sports, he stated "Sports role models are very powerful in a young kid's life" (Stenson). The goal of his programs is to educate kids of the alternatives rather than resorting to using steroids, which include training regiments and a variety of diets which are able to help athletes gain muscle the proper way.
My response to this article was one of surprise. Reading this article raised many questions for me on the amount of influence athletes who use steroids have on the younger generation of athletes. What concerns me the most now is how many kids out there are currently using steroids because the surveys done in the article were done in 2006. So who knows how many more kids are using steroids because I believe the number has gone up in the past couple years. It is shocking to see kids, who are using steroids, only admit to using them when they were asked in the surveys, but not tell their parents, coaches or even friends. I know there would be a lot of consequences with admitting to using steroids, but as time passes, people...

...Agents of Change and Nonviolent Action*
Nonviolent action is a way for ordinary people to fight for their rights, freedom, and justice. It is frequently associated with moral or ethical nonviolence, but I will address it here as a distinct phenomenon, separate from any moral or ethical underpinnings, to expand on how it works as a pragmatic way to exert leverage in a conflict. Nonviolent action is based on the insight that power in a society is ultimately derived from people’s consent and obedience. In contrast, the prevailing view is that power in a society is inherently based on whoever has concentrated wealth and the greatest capacity for violence. But just as the economy is a subsystem of the biosphere— and therefore is ultimately governed by the laws of the biosphere—so too, systems of power that are seemingly based on violence and money are actually subsystems of thousands or millions of people’s broader behavior and obedience patterns. If those people shift their loyalties, behavior, and obedience, the balance of power in a society, and in the world, shifts. Simply put, if people do not obey, then rulers or corporations cannot rule. Nonviolent action, therefore, wields power by creating shifts in people’s loyalties, behavior and obedience patterns at a collective level. This can happen dramatically, for example as it did at moments during the Indian Independence Struggle, the US Civil Rights Movement, various labor struggles (i.e. the United Farm Workers movement...

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Does Hard Work Beat IQ?
Charles Murray wrote the essay “What’s Wrong with Vocational School?” He is a political scientist and libertarian. Who got his B.A. in history from Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Murray, sect. 3) Charles Murray is currently an American Enterprise Institute scholar (Murray, sect. 3). His main point is that people with average and below average IQ should not go to college.
This essay is about how people with average and below average IQ should not go to college but instead attend a vocational school to learn a trade or skill. Murray’s purpose for this essay is to encourage students with average and below IQ to stray away from the popular path of going to a four-year college, but instead go to a smaller two-year or vocational school, and learn a trade or skill. He believes there are way too many students with an average IQ attending a four-year college (Murray). However, you can overcome these intellectual short comings by acquiring knowledge closer to you intellectual abilities. Murray states that the difference in difficulty between the “engineering and natural sciences” is extremely obvious, because if you cannot handle the math you will fail these courses (Murray). He also says that difference in difficulty between humanities and social sciences are harder to notice, because Murray says that a person with an IQ of a 100 can “ read the textbook, and...

...SummaryResponse Essay: “Graduation”
Narrated in the first person “Graduation” is Maya Angelou’s account of her eighth grade graduation and how reality doesn’t always meet expectations. Using allegory, allusion and changes in tone, Angelou builds her story, giving the reader a sense of the excitement and anticipation she felt, inequalities in gender and racial prejudices of that time, and how those inequalities and prejudices encroached upon her graduation, ruining her expectations and leaving her feeling defeated. Furthermore, Angelou gives the reader a feeling of her defeatist attitude and how, (through one person standing up proud and strong), she was able to gain personal insight and hope for a better future.
In the beginning of Angelou’s story, she gives the reader a sense of the anticipation and excitement she felt in the days leading up to her graduation and a sense of community and strength amongst her people. Angelou starts by describing her graduation dress in great detail, underscoring her excitement and anticipation. “My class was wearing butter-yellow pique dresses, and Momma launched out on mine. She smocked the yoke into tiny crisscrossing puckers, and then shirred the rest of the bodice. Her dark fingers ducked in and out of the lemony cloth as she embroidered raised daisies around the hem. Before she considered herself finished she added a crocheted cuff on the puff sleeves, and a pointy crocheted collar.” Angelou goes on to...

...Rosales 1
Cecilia Rosales
Professor Allen
Final Summary-Response Essay
16 October 2011
Argument Culture: Confrontation Online
In “The Argument Culture” by Deborah Tannen, she describes our adversarial society in debates and dialogues. Tannen discusses our culture’s style of seeing issues, questions, and conflicts as having two sides that battle each other for one goal. She states that using war metaphors: war on drugs or fight against AIDS, makes every conflict a battle in the minds of outsiders. The result, she says, is that the quality of information received is compromised. According to Tannen, language “invisibly molds our way of thinking about people, actions and the world around us”. In politics, she points out the increasingly warring mentality, whether at election time, during confirmation hearings, or immediately following the president’s State of the Union address when an opposing response must always be presented. Tannen distinguishes that some look forward to confrontation for many reasons, as well as enjoying a good debate, and that some issues do have two sides to it.
The argument culture makes us distort facts, waste valuable time, limits our thinking, and encourages us to lie (Tannen 491-492). She warns against the way the culture of critique, by plummeting every issue to two sides, can destroy the tone and complexity of a discussion and even value too highly of opinions. Tannen believes that...